An Exhibition at the James J. Hill House April 12 through September 27, 1997
Click to enlarge Cameron Booth, Summer Solstice, 1954 Click to enlarge Greg Kelsey, Panatomic Dome, 1988 Click to enlarge Keith Havens, Rock Wall Study, ca. 1970		Visitors came to James J. Hill's art gallery one hundred years ago to see what critics considered the "modern art" of that time: landscapes and figure paintings by French artists of the mid-nineteenth century. By the time of Hill's death in 1916, however, a few artists in Europe and America were painting canvases that took art in a new direction. These artists began to make paintings that were not pictures at all - not faces or places or images that viewers could identify - but abstract arrangements of shapes and colors. They believed that art no longer had to illustrate things seen in nature; instead, their works would reflect a freedom of expression for modern times. By the 1950s, abstraction - a simple term that refers to a complex variety of styles-became a common sight in Minnesota galleries. These new forms of expression often required some explanation that earlier, more familiar styles did not. Abstract artists, then and now, wrote "this side up" on the back of their works, with an arrow to explain which way the painting should be hung. Once the art was on the wall, artists and critics sought ways to explain it to the public. Viewers of the 1951 art exhibit at the Minnesota State Fair read, "A writer expresses himself with words, which are the symbols of thought, while the artist speaks in stone, wood, color, bronze, and other materials to make thoughts visible." This exhibition brings together artworks created in Minnesota over the past fifty years to show the variety of abstract modes that artists have practiced in the state. Jim Hill would not recognize them as "pictures," but these works represent a tradition of art history that began in his time, and continues to evolve today. Abstract art is often prompted by real-world sights and experiences. Many artists choose to distill what they see in nature into compositions that evoke, but do not illustrate, the Minnesota landscape. Keith Havens uses the rocks and streams around his north woods studio as the inspiration for paintings whose final form is reached, in part, by pouring watercolors onto his charcoal drawings. The human figure is another artistic yardstick for abstract artists. Seong Moy called his 1951 color print Homage; its swaying lines and shapes suggest a gesture of celebration or tribute. And the influence of the artist's urban surroundings-the buildings and streets that make up his or her daily world-can be seen in the grids and squares of many geometric abstractions. Patterns and rhythms play a key role in abstract art. By arranging shapes and colors, artists create their own sense of order within a painting. William SaltzmanŐs Vertical Tempo, for instance, has a subtle structure of top-to-bottom bands of color, reinforced by thick lines of paint. Phyllis Ames Wiener's Afternoon Map suggests fabric patterns and textures. She soaks acrylic paints into artist's canvas, to create vibrant colors and soft-edged shapes. Besides textile patterns, Wiener sees in her "ghost maps," as she calls these paintings, reminders of the lights of a city as an airplane traveler sees them- a point of view that is as characteristic of the 20th century as her own bright, stylized paintings. Many artists explore the methods and materials of their craft through abstraction. Cameron Booth experimented with "plastic paints," as he called the newly available acrylics of the 1950s. He felt that their quick drying time helped him to compose and change the shapes on his canvases rapidly, and thus capture his impulsive gestures in paint. Bruce Anderson uses great gobs and swirls of thick oil paint to create surfaces that seem sculpted with brushes, knives, and fingers. Reginald Sanders works on a more intimate scale, scraping and coloring paper into a finely textured terrain. Most of the artists represented in this exhibition do not make abstract works exclusively. Booth, for example, was well known as a painter of figures and landscapes from the 1920s to the 1940s. During the postwar decades he painted large, colorful abstractions like Summer Solstice, but in the final years of his life returned to more realistic scenes. Greg Kelsey painted abstract compositions that were inspired by nature as well as the works of earlier masters of abstraction. But while making richly-textured abstract oils, he also drew meticulous pencil portraits of fellow artists. And Jean Follett made sculpture and collages, in addition to her abstract paintings and drawings. Collaborations with writers, musicians, and stage designers allow artists to bring their visions into other art forms. Robert Johnson combines his love of poetry with his own abstract art to create books that are themselves multi-faceted artworks. His designs for a book of children's poetry by John Wills are bright and playful, while the prints he made to accompany a Robert Bly poem of brooding, autumnal images suggest that season's muted colors. Each book unites Johnson's hand-printed type and abstract designs with other artists' handmade papers and bindings. Minnesota's artists have often explained abstraction as an ongoing evolution in art, more than a conscious revolution against popular taste. While their abstract work has sometimes startled viewers, the artists themselves have presented it as a part of modern traditions in design and expression. This exhibition recognizes them as the unexpected heirs to Jim Hill's gallery walls and the bearers of modern art's standard in Minnesota. Copyright © 1997, Minnesota Historical Society HandCast Code™ These pages were built by Poor Design Group Inc.		Click to enlarge Seong Moy, Homage to Ieof Pei, 1952 Click to enlarge Phyllis Ames Wiener, Afternoon Map, 1986 William Saltzman, Vertical Tempo, 1957